Rosaceae
Prunus africana
African cherry · Pygeum · Red stinkwood
- Part used
- bark
- Native range
- Montane forest across sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar
- Morphology
- A large evergreen tree to forty metres with dark fissured bark and glossy leathery leaves, bearing small white flowers and red cherry-like fruit.
- Also known as
- Pygeum africanum
What is in it
Evidence
A Cochrane review found modest improvement in urinary symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia, while noting that the trials were small, short and predate modern standards. It is a prescription medicine in France and Italy.
Safety
Generally well tolerated; mild gastrointestinal effects. As with saw palmetto, effects on PSA readings are a consideration in prostate cancer screening.
Interactions: May confound PSA screening
Regulatory: CITES Appendix II since 1995. Prescription medicine in parts of Europe; permitted as a listed ingredient elsewhere.
Historical use
Used across its African range for a wide variety of complaints, including as a bark infusion for urinary difficulty. Commercial harvest for European pharmaceutical preparations began in the 1960s.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.
Worth knowing
Prunus africana is the case that produced an actual international trade suspension, and it is the clearest demonstration in this collection of what bark harvesting does.
Taking the bark means stripping the trunk. Done carefully, in panels, a tree recovers; done commercially at scale it kills it. Through the 1980s and 90s Cameroonian populations on Mount Kilum and elsewhere collapsed, and in 2007 the European Union suspended imports from Cameroon outright until harvesting could be brought under control.
It is one of a small number of medicinal plants where a conservation intervention has visibly changed the trade — and the pressure came from a European prostate supplement market with, at best, moderate evidence behind it.
Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.